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66 that I took in the crisis preceding the 18th Fructidor, and which I hoped by such means to avert," she wrote. "One was justified in hoping that the intelligence of M. de Talleyrand would bring about a reconciliation between the two parties. Since then I have not had the least share in the different phases of his political career."

There is a ring of disappointment in these words; but how could Madame de Staël, with her supposed infallible insight, ever have believed in such a nature?

"It is necessary to serve someone," was the answer of a noble when reproached for accepting the office of chamberlain to one of Napoleon's sisters. Madame de Staël records the reply with scorn; but she should, one thinks, have recognised the fibre of just such a man in the Bishop of Autun. The proscription extending on all sides after the 18th Fructidor, Madame de Staël's intervention became unceasing. She learnt the danger incurred by Dupont de Nemours, according to her "the most chivalrous champion of liberty" France possessed, and straightway she betook herself to Chénier, who, two years previously, had made the speech to which Talleyrand owed his recall. Her eloquence soon fired the nervous, violent-natured, but imaginative author, and, hurrying to the tribune, he succeeded in saving Dupont de Nemours, by representing him as a man of eighty, whereas he was barely sixty. This device displeased the very person in whose favour it was adopted; but Madame de Staël saved her friends in spite of themselves.

So much energy could not be displayed with impunity, and the Committee of Public Safety caused a hint to be conveyed to the Baron de Staël, which induced his wife to retire for a short time to the